Looking from Canada to the United States, across Niagara's Horseshoe Falls

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Liberal Jim Bradley: Greenliness is next to Godliness

I was listening to the CFRB radio show on Dec.20, 2007 (the two bald guys act hosted by Michael Coren and Stephen LeDrew) when their topic was whether “fat” people should be discriminated against, ie . put to the end of the line, or deprioritized, when it came to health services, in particular, whether they should get organ transplants if other, ‘healthier’ people are also waiting in line.

Liberal windbag LeDrew’s position was that “fat” people should be discriminated against, at one point actually justifying his position by saying: it’s “survival of the fittest”. Yes, this was a supposed-Liberal, former Toronto mayoral candidate, saying this.

We have to wonder how representative of the Liberal state of mind LeDrew’s views are. I find them frightening, especially if we remember that the Liberals are also staunch defenders of the state-run health monopoly, where a patient’s choice to pay for and receive the medical treatment they want is illegal – patients are forced to take only the treatment Liberals graciously deem to give.

Coren’s argument was how could you arbitrarily choose a particular risk group and single them out to receive less-priority, supposedly-universal, health care? (Yes, Michael Moore…this is what happens when patient health care choice degenerates into monopolized socialist-mob control: “fat” people become easy targets) Coren asked then whether its justifiable to similarly ban other high risk patients – gays, sky divers, Down’s patients, on the same basis as “fat” people, to which LeDrew couldn't seem to find an answer, remaining in favour of treatment discrimination against so-called “fat” patients. Unreal!

It seems that, because Liberals control the health system, they can now apply their morals of social engineering and social egalitarianism, justifiable reverse-discrimination, affirmative action, and skewed concepts of ‘fairness’ quotas to an individual’s health care options. Who is the Liberal's perfect patient – one who isn’t sick? Why should some Liberal political committee decide which patient imperfection will be the cause-celebre this year, so that those patients can be fashionably, and justifiably, rightly-so (in the Liberals’ mind, anyway), shunned by the Liberal elites, shamed and punished for being “fat” (or perhaps short or bald or a conservative or a socialist or whatever their deemed imperfection happened to be), and forced by the Liberal do-gooders to the back of the medicare line?

Because the State now pays for our healthcare, you see, and paying for it ourselves has been outlawed by the State, the State feels justified to control its costs by reducing coverage, and limiting who qualifies for medicare coverage, because they are a risk to the system.

The ultimate end?...The State decides you’re too old, outlived your usefulness, and you are summarily terminated. For any number of reasons (which the State can just pull out of its butt), you will be guilty of exceeding your allotted (whatever that may be, you don’t even know) political and environmental footprint, and off you go, to be sacrificed for the Good Of The State.

It’s a perfectly logical outcome and goal, coupled with the left’s hysteric pre-occupation with Kyoto and global warming – just get rid of enough inferior, non-ideal, flawed, imperfect, ‘sub-normal’ humans, and we can then easily meet our Kyoto commitments!

Let's not forget, the word “sub-normal” was in the title of Canada’s “founder” of medicare, Tommy Douglas', frightening McMaster University 1933 thesis advocating eugenics: "The problems of the subnormal family".
The State badly wants to link population control to the environment, causing mass panic and forcing individual citizens to acquiesce their individual rights to the new “green” bolshevik’s (Greensheviks) State Collective, which is then emboldened to pick and choose who they will target for “reductions”, so that the privileged “others” (presumably perfect-specimen, exemplary Liberals, the chosen Supermen of the Super Race) may continue their entitled existence.

'Overpopulation' is the hidden sub-text in the fear-mongering narrative of the Kyodiots.

Who decides how much population is enough? Who decides who’s “sub-normal”? The last election list? (Oh…let’s see…you voted for the Liberals…you’re ok – for now. But, you, on the other hand…)

Is this road-map, this scenario, frightening, or simply outlandish and implausible? Does anyone not think, that, when push comes to shove, that one’s pureness, one’s “greenliness”, won’t be forced at the end of some greenshevik zealot's gun? Is population control the ultimate goal of the Tommy Douglas/David Suzuki-type worshippers?

Rob MacDonald wrote in “Assmonkeys and the green agenda”, (National Post, May 16, 2007):

“By far the most dangerous aspect of the so-called "green agenda" is the undercurrent of socialism. This green agenda would quickly move to restrictions (in the name of morality) on numbers of children (carbon producers), how many families live in a common space (to save energy) and where you live (next to the factory so you don't have to drive). Those pushing the green agenda are not interested in our freedom nor our welfare. They are interested in their cause. And not unlike Lenin, Mao and Hitler, the cause becomes more important than people.

Beware, my fellow Canadians, of a dangerous beast.”

David S. Steinberg wrote in "Doctors should make medical, not moral decisions", (National Post, Dec.19, 2007):

Re: Turning Health Workers Into Torturers, Peter A. Singer, Dec. 18.

Dr. Peter A. Singer states that health care providers should not be forced to provide care which they find "morally and professionally distressing." But why should a patient's care depend on the personal moral values of their doctors and nurses? We entrust ourselves and our loved ones to the care of doctors and nurses, expecting that they will care for us, regardless of what they personally think of us or our conditions.I am sure many health care providers are distressed by the lots of the severely disabled and terminally sick patients for whom they care. Still, they have no right to decide which lives are worth living and which are "futile" on the basis of what they find troublesome or distressing.The issue here is not about when prolonging life becomes "futile." It is about who gets to make that decision and on what basis.

And the personal moral values of health care providers, much like the personal moral values of judges in the legal system, have no place in that process."

Jack Chambers wrote in the National Post (Dec.19, 2007), also on the same issue of doctors making decisions on behalf of the patient:

"Any health care professional who feels "tortured" by the messy business of "futile care" should find another line of work. The decision to end a life should never rest with a doctor. That is up to the family. The doctor provides information; the family makes the decision.I've always felt the precept "First, do no harm" suggested "ultimately, do not kill" even if the thought tortures you."

"Re: Doctors Should Make Medical, Not Moral Decisions, letter to the editor, Dec. 19.

Letter-writer David Steinberg has greatly misjudged the medical profession when he asserts that the personal moral values of physicians are of no account when patient care decisions are made. This view is naive in the extreme, for medicine by its very nature is an ethical endeavour. As a physician, I am not there to simply provide any service someone may choose. If in my opinion that service is detrimental to the patient then I will by no means engage in it.When I took the Hippocratic Oath, I stated, "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion." Therefore, if I deem any treatment to be deleterious then I am duty-bound to refuse it."

The above several interesting viewpoints lead to more questions: what if a patient wants to pay for a certain procedure - if doc#1 refuses to proceed on moral, not medical, grounds, then the patient can walk away and go to doc#2, who perhaps will. But what if doc#1's patient is one whose legal living will has been invoked due to an unforseen trauma, calling for a procedure which doc#1 has a moral problem with? Does doc#1 just walk away from his patient's wishes? Does he find another doc#2 willing to carry on? Who is best placed to make these 'moral' (as opposed to medical) decisions : the patient, the doctor, or the state? Who decides the definition of "futile care" ???Doctors certainly should have the latitude to not go against their moral perceptions...or should they? Already I've read claims that, since the state funds doctor training, it should also tell doctors where to practice and what to practice: in effect, eventually absorbing the medical professional as another employee of the State, whose personal moral beliefs will become secondary to the employer's official State Morality. You got a moral hangup about performing abortions, doc? Too bad...you work for the State, not for yourself, and, certainly, you don't really work for the patient, either. We decide what (minimum) level of care a patient is "entitled" to, and NO MORE!Doctors will be told and will be forced, as will patients, to abide by the State Healthcare Approved Morality laws - aka SHAM laws for a sham of a system - with all the ominous abusive potential for despotism which such State control allows. Because the State is the only single-payer, the State: decides what and how much health-care it will fund, and what it, - not the patient, or the doctor - deems is neccessary; takes away a patient's right to pay for their own care; takes away a doctor's right to accept private payment; takes away the doctor's moral obligations by substituting its own moral code - and doctors will become "duty-bound" NOT to refuse working under this rule. The patients have no choice; the doctors have no choice. (Is this what California in Dec.2007, under Schwarzenegger, thinks is a great solution - the Borg-like, "resistance-is-futile" future of single-payer medicare?) We've seen the effort in the early 1990's to reduce the number of doctors in Ontario by cutting med school enrolments. We've seen lobby groups influencing government to give increased powers to other health professionals. It is a matter of time before the State, wearing its mask of 'moral wisdom' and 'compassion', begins instituting care decisions on a patient's behalf, as a routine matter of non-choice. What a doctor, nurse, or even the patient himself, has to say, will become largely irrelevant. The State pays; the State decides. The patient gets not what he wants; the patient gets what the State deems is the minimum he needs - if that. Suzanne Aucoin's terrible experience at the hand of the Liberal's health care system (which Ontario's ombudsman referred to as "cruel" in 2007) was a harbinger of what's yet in store.

In a newsletter (Seniors’ Alert, Fall 2007, edited by Mary Stanko) distributed in the lobby of the St. Catharines City Hall (interestingly, with a large "elect Jim Bradley" Liberal ad on its front cover), an article read:

“Yet there is a danger of “the planet taking priority over people” when “environmentalism becomes a religion, as with the NDP and the Greens, and one which is anti-human…

Toronto Star’s columnist Richard Gwyn observed on Apr.30, 2007: “Environmentalists…are concerned about nature first and foremost and about people second. This constitutes a substantial shift in our priorities.” Gwyn pointed out the muted response to the genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan & doubling of the Canadian Green party’s vote as evidence of this.

Environmentalist Paul Watson is associating human beings with the “AIDS of the earth” and declares the work population must be reduced to under one billion (The Australian, May 7, ’07; LifeSiteNews, May 8, ’07.) Who will provide Care/Pensions for our Retirees, or will they be gradually be euthanized (Mercy Killing) & there will no longer be a need for these services”Liberal MPP Jim Bradley was one person who Senior’s Alert credits on its front cover “kindly funded” the publication…so, does Jim Bradley, State-run-monopoly-health-care advocate, and Kyoto-supporter, have any response?

Seniors’ Alert continued: “England’s Guardian newspaper reported on the scam that lies behind Kyoto’s “carbon market,” noting that two global markets set up in the wake of Kyoto climate summit in 1997 earned fortunes for speculators and for some of the companies that produce most greenhouse gasses, but delivered little or no benefit to the environment (June 2, 2007)

Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris of the Canadian National Resources Stewardship Project are warning that, thanks to hysteria, we are heading toward total government control of day-to-day life, “Big government has teamed with ‘big green’ to force foolish and unnecessary greenhouse gas controls on society, something that is clearly going to result in big trouble for average people and small businesses,’ they said (CanadaFreePress.com, May 26, 2007)”

Harris and Ball also wrote in “Environmental do-gooders: Prove it!”, (Toronto Sun, May 28, 2007): “Prove it! That’s how we must respond whenever governments ban established products to “save the planet.” If politician’s can’t validate their schemes with comprehensive and unbiased scientific studies then they should stop telling us how to live our lives.”But isn’t this exactly what it’s all about…centralized political power, whether in health-care or the environment, preferably controlling both?

Harris and Ball continue: “Looking “green” is no longer good enough – governments must demonstrate their decisions really are green if they expect to be seen as anything other than political opportunists.”

This reminds me of a “Communication from the City of Thorold, Dated March 22, 2007, Re; Community Energy Plan, File:35.11.2”, that was found in the City of St. Catharines’ General Agenda minutes dated April 30, 2007.

This Malthusian GreenFear-mongering piece of crap began with this classic knee-slapper: “Ms. Susan Daniels, Deputy City Clerk, has advised that the City of Thorold enacted the following resolution at its meeting of March 20, 2007: “WHEREAS scientific evidence of humanity’s impact on climate change is indisputable…” and so on it went. “Humanity’s impact” is “indisputable”, at least, in Thorold, Ontario, Canada, anyway.

This resolution, [proudly sent to St. Catharines, why, for us to emulate?] also states that “the two major contributors to greenhouse gas are transportation and human demand for energy which will continue to rise on a global scale”, without any shred of evidence. They believe, or rather, know this to be true, and so are ready to enshrine this 'truth' in legislation, to reconfirm it and make it forever undisputable, therefore justifying the dreaded green decrees which will surely follow.

The Thorold resolution continues: stating that “climate change affects culturally, socially, and economically, and the existence and of some cultures and even nations will depend on a global commitment to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. The very existence of some cultures and nations is in the hands of Thorold council!?

Even a left-wing Liberal like Buzz Hargrove said (CAW newsletter, Apr.20, 2007): “We stand to lose 150,000 jobs in our auto industry as politicians try to ‘out green’ one another…Canada is only responsible for about two per cent of the world's total greenhouse gas production and shutting down the entire country would barely make an impact. The union is supportive of the Kyoto Accord as long as timetables are flexible enough for industries to meet them”. Sure, typical Liberal duplicity…appear to want to abide by Kyoto, just not necessarily actually abide by Kyoto, right? Clear as mud.

The Thorold resolution [to fight Hargrove’s 2% figure!] nevertheless suggests an ominous “move to the new reality”, [whatever the hell that means…is that a political or a legal term? Is that in any way enforceable?] by taking “small and giant steps necessary to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. This Thorold resolution was an actual political document! It’s unbelievable that this kind of hysteria is actually taking hold of politicians out there. Of course, no one knows what any of these ridiculous small and giant steps cost, and whether they’re even necessary. It has been ordained as an indisputable truth, which must be carried out at all costs.

For a rational perspective on political thoughts like those embodied in the Thorold resolution, Peter Foster’s article “The madness of eco-crowds”, is a good start (National Post, May 23, 2007):

“One of my favourite books has always been Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Written more than 150 years ago by a gentleman named Charles Mackay, it provides a necessary reminder of mankind's periodic tendency to go collectively off its rocker.I was reminded of the book while listening to a CBC report that featured some earnest soul suggesting that the recent plummeting of a piece of marble from Toronto's First Canadian Place might be due to climate change. Such a belief would surely fit into Mackay's category of "the most remarkable instances of moral epidemics [that] show how imitative and gregarious men are."That is, we tend to think in herds, and the herd frequently launches itself off a cliff. "In reading the history of nations," writes Mackay, "We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly."Extraordinary Delusions is filled with accounts of great public manias, from the South Sea Bubble and Tulipomania to widespread belief in witches and apocalyptic prophesies. Which brings us to current apocalyptic environmental forecasts and the almost universal call for centrally directed global mobilization to "do something." Now.It is not that climate change is not a fact of life, or that humans may not be having a marginal impact upon it. It is not even that the science is far more uncertain than radicals claim. It is that these beliefs have come to be considered an all-consuming "truth." Everything is suddenly seen through a climate change prism. This perspective warps the view from the highest levels of government to the smallest of local communities.With regards the latter, another report on the CBC last week focused on a small rural English village, Ashton Hayes, which is attempting to become "carbon neutral" to fight climate change. When I heard the report, my mind went to another British reference, this time the recent British comedy Hot Fuzz. In the movie, a hotshot policeman -- who is so good at his job that he makes his colleagues look bad -- is dispatched for that reason to an allegedly sleepy, crime-free village that does, however, have an extraordinary number of "accidents."It emerges that a cabal of influential villagers -- obsessed with winning the award for prettiest village in England -- are not above murdering anybody who might threaten their village's picturesque status!Similarly, Ashton Hayes -- which has become a point of pilgrimage for eco-warriers/worriers (and described by the Financial Times of London as being like a "green-tinged Lourdes") -- doesn't sound admirable so much as creepy, with roaming teams of eco-auditors, and the application of social pressures to stop such wasteful practices as sending individual Christmas cards.Again according to the Financial Times: "Refuse recycling rates have replaced village cricket as the jealously fought competitive sport between rival villages." When it comes to real sport, meanwhile, the village has a carbonneutral soccer team.Sounds like a nightmare to me, although organizers claim that there is no "finger pointing" at anybody who refuses to sign on to the eco-moralization of virtually every form of activity, from leaving on the coffee machine to taking holiday flights.Apparently, more than 30 other British communities have joined Ashton Hayes on the Via Dolorosa to carbon neutrality. One would love to hear what the half of the village that hasn't signed on to this mania thinks of it, and what kind of pressures they feel from their puritan neighbours.There have been myriad examples of manias and delusions since Mackay's book. Marxism-Leninism was perhaps the bloodiest delusion in history. It came strapped to the recurring belief that capitalism was always about to self-destruct (which makes it, not coincidentally, analogous to current apocalyptic environmental theories).Similarly, Malthusian delusions of resource depletion and widespread starvation have raised their head with astonishing regularity in the past century and a half. Not long after Mackay wrote, there was concern that the Industrial Revolution might grind to a halt for want of coal. Petroleum has been confidently predicted to be on the point of exhaustion virtually since its first discovery. Meanwhile there have always been seers and charlatans around to point the way to salvation. Significantly, however, some of the most truly apocalyptic events of the past 150 years have been linked to following their advice.Although believing that climate change is causing pieces of marble to fall off buildings is perhaps at the outer limits of mania, global warming is widely believed to be behind every extreme weather event, from Parisian heat waves to Hurricane Katrina."Men, it has been well said," wrote Mackay, "think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."We have been here before.”

On Dec.19, 2007 I was watching a network television commercial and there appeared a long shot of a massive black swirling tornado, after which a female announcer's ominous voiceover tells us: "It's time to think about what inefficient appliances are doing to the environment", while the tornado cuts to a lineup of Bosch brand appliances!
It was a completely shameless pandering to the green crowd. (Bosch also runs a similar ad, substituting a long shot of a glacier chunk falling into water.)
The ads don't exactly specify the tenuous links between tornados, glaciers - or Al Gore's or David Suzuki's lifetime pollution footprint of flying by airplane, for that matter - and your home’s fridge. But we're to supposed to KNOW, nudge-nudge wink-wink, what they hint/mean/insinuate/allude to. This is what industry stoops to, to gain their market share?
It’s enough for me NOT to buy anything from Bosch.
This ad reminded me of the absurd segment in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur has a deadpan serious discussion with one of the other knights about how sheep's bladder (... maybe made by Bosch, too?) can be used to predict earthquakes!!! There are no words...!!
(...maybe Bosch, after reading this, can also explain in retrospect, how it is that they thought that their FALSE allusion, linking "climate change" to tornadoes/hurricanes, in order to 'scare' up sales of their products, was a good idea? They were selling appliances based on science fiction!)

Speaking of Malthusian delusions, here’s a shocking National Post (Nov.29, 2007) editorial, “Taking green to the extreme”, (which when you read it sounds like a Monty Python sketch in itself, but sadly, it's grotesquely real):

“Toni Vernelli, a dedicated British environmental crusader, may strike some as a deeply devoted champion of her cause. Frankly, she strikes us as more than a little off balance, perhaps even cultish. At 27 (Ms. Vernelli is now 35), she had herself sterilized in order to "protect the planet." Prior to that, she had an abortion rather than bring another consumer/ emitter into the world."Having children is selfish," she recently told London's Daily Mail newspaper. "It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet. Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases and adds to the problem of over-population."We like to think (as most people do) that giving another person life and agreeing to raise them through infancy, childhood and the teenage years into adulthood is the height of selflessness, not selfishness. How much easier to be able to come home from work when you want, not when a child needs picking up from school, or to go out when you want and not have to worry about being home in time to put children to bed and get the babysitter home. No pretending to enjoy animated television or movies. No sitting up nights nursing a scared and feverish little one. No 6:30 a.m. hockey practices. No fights with a ninth-grader over friends, clothes or hair. No worried late nights waiting for a high schooler to return with the car.Far from being selfish, it could be argued that most people -- Ms. Vernelli included -- have no idea what it means to make a sacrifice for others until they have children of their own.But Ms. Vernelli lords her childlessness over others like a moral cudgel and rejoices in her condition and her cause with a religious fervour. After her sterilization procedure, she and her husband celebrated the sacrifice they had made for the sake of Mother Earth, and she boasts of having many friends who, "like me, are more interested in campaigning, trying to change society and save the planet rather than having families of our own."From a purely materialistic point of view, we suppose, environmentalists such as Ms. Vernelli are less hypocritical than their co-campaigners, who have large families and drive from Save the Planet rallies to their next Live Earth planning meeting in a full-sized SUV. She certainly poses an intellectual challenge to former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who has four children, lives in a big, energy-consuming, carbon-spewing mansion and flies from speech to speech in private jets.Still, there is something almost millenarian in her actions, as though they were more about proving to herself and other like- minded eco-fundamentalists just how pure she is, like the cultists who mutilate themselves to prove to their devoted leader they are worthy to be taken up in the mother ship when the end-time comes.Finally comes the most indelicate observation of all: If it is selfish of environmentalists to have children because of the damage those offspring would do, isn't it even more selfish for those environmentalists to stay alive themselves when they are consuming every bit as much water, land, fuel and timber, and producing just as much pollution and greenhouse gas? Why sacrifice the lives of their potential children before they have sacrificed their own? Mightn't suicide be the ultimate sacrifice an environmental extremist should make for his or her beloved planet?Of course even to entertain such a line of inquiry is ridiculous and even inhuman, but no more so than Ms. Vernelli's sterilization and abortion in the name of environmentalism.”

This editorial above was followed up by “Humanity is not a mistake”, (National Post, Dec.3, 2007):“Here are some of the online responses to "Taking green to the extreme," our Nov. 29 editorial about a dedicated environmentalist named Toni Vernelli who had herself sterilized to "protect the planet."freedomwriter Just beneath the surface of Ms. Vernelli's comments is an idea that some environmentalists, obviously, still hold to be true. That humanity is a mistake of some kind -- something that exists outside of nature and is therefore not worthy to live on this planet. However, we are just as much a part of nature as all non- human life forms.The sad irony is that Ms. Vernelli is of the same mindset as those she spurns the most -- those whose actions of polluting show that they too see themselves outside of nature and therefore feel they can do with nature as they please. Ms. Vernelli is probably completely oblivious to the fact that it is her outlook on humanity that got us to this point (that she despises so much) in the first place.One last thing: Children make this planet livable.

Alexander (Sandy) How can we convince other radical environmentalists to follow suit?

IainGFoulds As Pope John Paul recognized: We have shifted from a culture of life, to one of death. The ideas of Ms. Vernelli are products of this culture of death. They are related to the extreme feminist ideals of "no man, no children"-- which is pitifully contrary to values of life.

JIMKAY With the populations of Europe, Japan and most of the West in decline, and given China's one-baby policy, it would seem that Ms. Vernelli is preaching to the converted.”

The next day, Jerry Steinberg “founding non-father, No Kidding! The international social club for childless and childfree couples and singles, Vancouver”, wrote in “In praise of not having children”, (National Post, Dec4, 2007):“Re: Taking Green To The Extreme, editorial, Nov. 29. Amazingly, there are still some people who believe that there is no limit to the number of people this tiny planet can accommodate. Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that more people use more resources and produce more pollution?When China discovered that it was running out of arable and habitable land, it introduced a one-child policy to slow down the growth of its population. How long will it take for the rest of the world to come to the same realization?The world isn't getting any bigger, but the human population continues to proliferate. The amount of habitable and arable land on planet Earth is finite, and in fact, is diminishing. The population of the planet increases by 250,000 (net) every day -- that's three new babies to house and feed every second. Even if we could increase food production to accommodate all of these new hungry people, where will we find enough potable water to keep them alive and healthy?Instead of criticizing people who choose not to have children, you should be thanking them for leaving more room and resources for all your offspring.”

To which John L. Shone replied in “There is no greater joy than children”, (National Post, Dec.5, 2007):“I love my kids, so I am flabbergasted by Jerry Steinberg's half- baked Malthusian argument in favour of childlessness. If Mr. Steinberg was truly a man of principle (or at least, of the principles he espouses), he would have finished writing his letter, then -- realizing he was consuming scarce resources -- he would have ended his time on this Earth right then and there. Since Mr. Steinberg is no doubt still with us, I can only conclude that other people's offspring are the problem, not his parents' children.”(Didn’t chief Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki have something like five kids? Isn’t that quite the hypocritical genetic footprint to boldly (hypocritically?) impose upon an otherwise just and pure society? Why should others suffer with Suzuki’s spawn?)How does the frightening Liberal vision of controlling health care and the environment, with a focus on “overpopulation”, involve St.Catharines, Ontario's local MPP, Liberal Jim Bradley?

Let’s look back almost 17 years ago, to this story, “The top 5; We asked the experts below to list five most critical environmental issues. Surprisingly, none of them mentioned garbage or recycling”, (Ottawa Citizen, Jul.21, 1991):“Reading the endless series of news stories about environmental threats can be bewildering.They take in an intimidating range of subjects from acid rain to zebra mussels, from nuclear waste buried deep underground to the holes in the wispy layer of protective ozone 30 kilometres above us.The constant warnings of ecological dangers can be overwhelming.To sort through the mass of information and find the key issues, the Citizen asked 10 Canadians with diverse environmental backgrounds to tell us what they feel are the five most critical environmental issues today.This is a major departure from traditional news coverage, which often follows the latest political event or hotly debated scientific discovery, but may not look for basic issues.We gave the experts no examples, no short list of choices. We asked them to start from scratch, not restricting themselves to their own areas of expertise.Their answers were all remarkably in tune.Perhaps surprisingly, none of the panelists mentioned the two issues that preoccupy many Canadians _ garbage and recycling.''When you try to pick the top things that may wipe out the planet, municipal garbage isn't one that springs to mind,'' said the Sierra Club's Elizabeth May.The panelists brought insights from years of experience. Some found it very hard to pick just five issues. Here's a closer look.Janet Halliwell chairs the Science Council of Canada, which makes her the top scientist advising the federal government on science policy. Her top five issues, in order of importance, are: population growth, consumption (of energy, food and other things that create waste), traditional economic values, the global gap between rich and poor, and urbanization.Jean Charest became Environment Minister this spring. While he's new on the job, that goes with his position. There have been eight federal environment ministers since 1980. He lists climate change, loss of biodiversity, ozone depletion, global co-operation and changing behavior.Elizabeth May, a lawyer, fought pesticides in the Maritimes and later helped save South Moresby Island as a national park. She heads Cultural Survival Canada, which is interested in developing nations' environmental issues, and is Canada's national representative of the Sierra Club. Last year she won a United Nations prizes for environmental achievement. Her choices are changes to the atmosphere (acid rain, global warming, ozone depletion), population pressures, loss of biodiversity and wilderness, pollution and over-exploitation of oceans, and inequity between the developing and industrialized world.Jim Bradley was Ontario's environment minister from 1985 to 1990, when the province cleaned up much of its acid rain and started enforcing pollution laws to the letter. The Liberal MPP for St. Catharines lists overpopulation, global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, discharge of persistent toxins, and deforestation of tropical and temperate forests.Gary Potts is chief of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai, the Deep-Water People. They live in and near Temagami, and their legal fight against logging in old-growth forests there has made them one of the country's most environmentally active native groups. His top issue is the failure to realize we are connected with living world. Other issues are preoccupation with industry and technology, the need to study interaction of all life forms and how industry and technology can fit in, depletion of the ozone layer, and deforestation.David Schindler of the University of Alberta at Edmonton is one of the world's leading freshwater scientists. He has been instrumental in teaching North America about the dangers of acid rain, global warming, and, long ago, phosphates in detergents. He picks habitat destruction, overharvesting of important species of animals and plants, invasions of exotic species (species foreign to an ecosystem), toxic chemicals in water, food and air, and (underlying all the above) increasing population and per-capita use of resources.Thomas d'Aquino is president of the Business Council on National Issues. A British Columbia lawyer, he has made his organization the country's main lobby group for big business. His issues are stimulating awareness of sustainable development, world population, climate change, loss of productive land, and putting the market system to work for the environment.Mike Kaulbars is one of the prime movers in Ottawa's chapter of Earth First!, an environmental group that uses confrontation to stop development it sees as dangerous, especially logging. Kaulbars lists climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and desertification (soil loss).Anne Whyte is director of the social services division at the International Development Research Centre. She also heads the global change program for the Royal Society of Canada, the association that represents this country's scientists. Her priorities are climate warming, population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation, international economic, trade and technology policies that favor developed nations, and unequal distribution of social and environmental goods (such as land, water, natural resources).Guy Costanzo chairs the environmental and occupational health division of the Canadian Public Health Association. He is also an administrator with the Vancouver Health Department. His list includes deforestation, air pollution from fossil fuels, the dumping of industrial effluent into watercourses, ocean fish harvesting practices (especially drift netting), and upper atmospheric chemistry (mainly destruction of the ozone layer).Our project doesn't end here. As Janet Halliwell said after typing four pages, ''the issues are complex and I have barely scratched the surface.''We plan to use the survey's findings to guide our own coverage of the environment. That means stories about our dangerous love of cars and energy consumption, both of which produce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.”

“Our climate is baking in invisible gases and our population is exploding. These are the world's greatest environmental dangers, say 10 experts surveyed by the Citizen.The erosion of the Earth's protective ozone layer and our destruction of forests and other kinds of wilderness are also critical threats.But one of society's favorite environmental themes _ ordinary garbage _ doesn't rank among the big threats, the experts say.To help define the planet's most crucial issues, the Citizen asked 10 prominent Canadians from a variety of fields to identify the top five environmental threats.The experts were scientists, activists and politicians. This is what they told us:Global warming, the biggest threat, stems from our collective gluttonous appetite for energy.''If you're looking for scary issues with the potential for apocalyptic scenarios, this is your topic,'' writes Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club.Consequences, she says, include ''melting ice caps, rising sea levels (and) droughts in currently rich farming country like Canada's prairies.''Carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and the gases used to replace CFCs (called HCFCs) are building up in our air and trapping more and more heat from the sun.An average car emits five tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Utilities add more carbon dioxide by burning coal or oil to provide for our electricity needs.The Earth's growing population tips the balance even more in the wrong direction. We are adding 1 billion human beings every 11 years, which Janet Halliwell, chairman of the Science Council of Canada, calls ''a key factor in environmental challenge and stress.'' The Earth's now has 5.4 billion people, and will have twice as many in a century or so, even after the current growth rate slows down.The more population grows, says former Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley, ''the more agricultural land will be over-used, misused and removed; the more contaminated will become the air, water and soil; and the faster the oil, gas and other resources will disappear.''The scientists in the Citizen poll say we must treat population control as a first step to solving other environmental problems.''Unfortunately, these (environmental) problems are presently being attacked singly,'' says David Schindler, a zoologist at the University of Alberta and a leading freshwater expert. He believes Canada could become ''a blueprint for the rest of the world'' if we control our population.One of the survey's most striking conclusions is that our society often ignores the problems these experts say are most pressing. (Quick, when was the last time you talked to someone about global population growth or greenhouse gases?)No government in Canada has taken significant action on either of these, the experts say.The third-ranked problem is the slow destruction of the ozone layer 30 or more kilometres above us, which filters out the sun's harmful radiation.Industrial chemicals (largely CFCs) release chlorine that destroys ozone. The danger, says Environment Minister Jean Charest, is ''skin cancer in humans, untold damage to animal life, (and) disruption of plant life... A global effort is required by governments to preclude or reduce CFC emissions.'' Unscreened solar rays also cause cataracts.The loss of wilderness and biodiversity (many different life forms) ranks fourth, as panelists warn of extinctions of plants and animals.''Just as a one-industry town is economically fragile, low-diversity ecosystems are very vulnerable to total collapse,'' writes Mike Kaulbars of Earth First!Toxic pollution is fifth on the list. Many toxins last for decades, accumulating in our bodies from our food and water.Guy Costanzo of the Canadian Public Health Association warns of the ''obvious'' hazards _ ''destruction of marine biota (plants and animals) and contamination of drinking water.'' Governments must assess the impact of new industries, he says.Other dangers the experts list are:Deforestation. Costanzo and others warn this will lead to more global warming (because trees soak up carbon dioxide) and extinction of forest species.Loss of farmland. Thomas d'Aquino of the Business Council on National Issues warns that subsistence farming in poor countries depletes soil and groundwater and pollutes soil.Ocean fishing and ocean pollution. Costanzo picks as a prime offender drift nets, which catch everything in their path.Priorities. We have lost touch with our role as an animal species that is part of a web of life, and centred our lives on industry, says Gary Potts of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai people.We must re-establish contact with the Earth, he says. ''The land decides what we can do with it.''Mike Kaulbars of Earth First! says it doesn't make sense to ask for a ranking of five separate issues, because they are all linked.For instance, ''ozone depletion will exacerbate climate change, extinctions, deforestation, and desertification (slow drying and erosion of useful farmland).'' He also compares his top five issues to five bullets in a gun, saying in an interview: ''Any one of them can kill you.''”Yes...environmental bullets in a man-made gun. And the kyodiots are the self-appointed sherrifs. And Jim Bradley is workin' hard, y'see, to be Our Saviour. Fools that we are, we cannot see how Jim has suffered for our sins against Mother Earth.

Let’s re-read some of the excerpts from above:“Jim Bradley was Ontario's environment minister from 1985 to 1990, when the province cleaned up much of its acid rain and started enforcing pollution laws to the letter. The Liberal MPP for St. Catharines lists overpopulation, global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, discharge of persistent toxins, and deforestation of tropical and temperate forests.”

and“The more population grows, says former Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley, ''the more agricultural land will be over-used, misused and removed; the more contaminated will become the air, water and soil; and the faster the oil, gas and other resources will disappear.'' The scientists in the Citizen poll say we must treat population control as a first step to solving other environmental problems.”

Is this the 'hidden agenda', the Gaia-istic GreenFear Gospel, of Malthusian Liberal Kyoto-pusher Jim Bradley?Is this the so-called "environmentalists’ saint’s" true religion?!Subjugating - if not sacrificing - humanity at the altar of the “environment”, and using government-controlled monopoly health-care as one of his means to this end?*